Advocacy On-Air: Listening Party + Discussion on Radio Activism

When: Monday, October 16, 7pm

Where: Starr Bar, 214 Starr Street, Brooklyn

Audio Interference – the biweekly podcast produced by Interference Archive – re-launches this October. To mark this occasion we are hosting Advocacy On-Air, a panel discussion on the use of radio as a political medium and a community building tool. Guests will include Sylvia Ryerson, of Appalshop’s Calls from Home, Fabian Muenala Pineda, of Kichwa Hatari New York, and Naomi Brussel of Out-FM. Because we’re still unpacking in our new space, we’re holding this event at Starr Bar (214 Starr Street, Brooklyn) at 7pm on Monday, October 16. The event is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

Naomi Brussel is a long-time political activist, working, over the years, with civil rights, peace, labor, feminist, AIDS, Jewish, health justice, queer and anti-zionist groups in NYC. She also worked in community centers, a psychiatric clinic, and as an AIDS medical social worker in various hospitals before her retirement nine years ago. Naomi has been a produced for Out-FM, WBAI’s Progressive LGBTiQ radio show since 2008. The show, in various forms, has been on the air for more than two decades. WBAI is a listener-supported radio station, part of the Pacifica network of 5 stations in the USA.

Fabian Muenala Pineda is a Kichwa from Otavalo, Ecuador. As social, cultural and artistic activist Fabian has dedicated a majority of his life to advocating for the empowerment of Kichwa as a language, culture and way of living for indigenous communities in Ecuador. These roles have included co-producing didactic bilingual intercultural educational materials for the CONAIE and CIEI in Ecuador, and later becoming teacher and field trainer for bilingual educators nationwide in the Ecuadorian region. Today, Fabian collaborates and leads on many cultural projects from New York, including founding Kichwa Nation and Co-Producing for Kichwa Hatari.

Sylvia Ryerson is a radio producer, sound artist and journalist based in Brooklyn, NY. For nearly a decade her work, rooted at the intersection of scholarship, activism and art, has probed the overlapping crises of mass incarceration, rural poverty, and environmental destruction. Her work has been featured on WNYC’s The Takeaway, The Marshall Project, Transom.org, The Third Coast International Audio Festival, the BBC and WBUR’s Here and Now. After graduating from Wesleyan University, Sylvia moved to Eastern Kentucky to work at Appalshop, the renowned documentary arts center in the heart of the Central Appalachian Mountains. Sylvia served as a reporter and Director of Public Affairs for Appalshop’s community radio station WMMT-FM, and led the production of Calls from Home, a nationally recognized radio program sending phone messages from family members to their loved ones incarcerated in rural Appalachia. ​In 2014, Sylvia started Restorative Radio, a participatory audio documentary project. She works with families that have loved ones incarcerated to create “audio postcards” from home. She then works with radio stations to broadcast the postcards so their loved ones in prison—as well as the general listening audience—can hear them. The project aims to transcend prison walls and change public perceptions of who is behind them, creating a pathway towards healing for individuals, families, communities and a nation profoundly affected by mass incarceration.

Please note that because this event is being held in a bar, it is 21+ only.